


I have loved the stars too truly

by colfield



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, introspection about love and storms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-08 21:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18902557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colfield/pseuds/colfield
Summary: A storm rages over Roswell. In its path, three people find shelter.





	I have loved the stars too truly

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in two hours during a thunderstorm, so I apologize if you find any mistakes.
> 
> Title taken from the poem The Old Astronomer by Sarah Williams. Most versions have the line as 'I have loved the stars too fondly' but I found this version on [Wikisource](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Old_Astronomer), and I prefer it this way. Please comment or like if you happen to enjoy this!

_Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;_

_I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night._

 

The storm rolls in slowly, a dark wash coloring the sky, clouds spreading like waves across the shore. It’s one of those that you can feel coming for days; the air sitting heavy around you like a cloak, a bone-deep restlessness that sets everyone on edge, waiting for something, anything, to break, to give way to the rumbling clouds and electric charge.

The rain hasn’t arrived yet, but the scent carries on the breeze, soaking the parched earth with a promise.

In its path, three people find shelter.

 

_I see your faults. And I love you. Easily. // Without evidence, I know._

Liz wraps the blanket around her shoulders tighter, turning her face in to breathe. The essence of Max Evans is hidden within the folds of this blanket; sun-soaked and wind-whipped desert air, ink stained fingerprints, worn soft with use, warm enough that Liz could overheat if wrapped up too long.

She’s traveled this wide, open country twice over. She’s stood at the edge of the world while ocean waves stole her breath and slapped her checks with salty kisses. She’s looked towards the heavens, humbled beneath giants slumbering in the forests. She’s climbed mountains and buildings, marveled over nature’s beauty and mankind’s innovations.

None of it compares to a thunderstorm raging across the New Mexico desert.

The first drops hit the ground. In its wake, a perfect round circle of damp earth. The rain hits like bombshells, loud enough to shock on impact.

“What are you doing?” Max is leaning against the frame in the doorway, safely out of reach of the skies’ wrath. Liz smiles at him over her shoulder.

“I’ve always loved the rain.” She says, letting the wind bring her words to him.

Max steps into the steadily increasing storm, heedless of the fat, wet drops beating at his arms and chest.

He’s been always like that. Following her, mindlessly, into whatever uncertainty she stumbles into. It’s overwhelming, and terrifying, the knowledge that he would never deny her anything she asks. That he loves her, wholly and without hesitation, even when Liz is spinning out, the voice in her head insisting that she _run_ louder and truer than any of his _I love yous_ could be.

She’s never been able to live up to others’ expectations of who she ought to be. She could never be wild for Rosa, or easy for Kyle, or good for her father, or _enough_ for mother.

She can never love Max the way he loves her. Although she does, love him. She knows it, deep within her, a calming reassurance that’s she not broken, not when she can look at Max and feel peace.

Max loves her with the enormity of the universe at his back. She’ll never be able to match that. She tries to, anyway, always coming up short in the end.

He wraps her up, a cradle of comfort within the stirrings of the storm around them. They’re fully drenched now, the rain coming hard and fast. She leans into him, locking the corners and crevices of her body to his.

He kisses her ear, the line of her hair, rubs his damp nose against the sensitive skin of her neck, and she shivers into the feeling.

“Let’s go inside.” She offers.

She lets him pull her into safety and warmth and certainty.

They leave the doors open while they strip each other, touching soft, vulnerable places with lips and tongues and vows.

Liz gives her urge to run up to the storm’s fury outside. Inside, she quiets her mind and falls into Max, trying to love him with all the devotion he deserves.

 

_It can be a person. // You were never my person, Noah._

The storm has driven most patrons away, fleeing to the comfort of somewhere permanent and secure.

Maria’s never had that, so she stays open, sign flashing a beacon to all those like her against the dusky gray clouds. In case someone needs to find their way home.

In the end, it’s Isobel Evans who finds her.

Isobel has a sad quality about her, the beautifully broken kind of person that people write sonnets and love songs about. The kind that people start wars over.

She looks at Maria like someone asking for salvation, despair blurring her eyes.

Maria molded herself into a haven for the lost souls of this world. She offers up what she can, a safe place to rest, somewhere without judgement or assumptions, a comfort from the storm.

So when Isobel comes to her, with that look of a collapsing star, Maria opens her arms without question.

The thunder arrives, threatening to consume as it rattles the walls around them, rain beating at the doors with angry fists.

“I just need-” Isobel gasps, her hands cold around Maria’s wrist, and Maria nods, pulled into her orbit helplessly, because she needs something like that too.

Isobel’s heart is rabbit-fast when they kiss, her pulse a bass reverberating a rhythm that Maria can only grasp at, drowning out the noise of the thunder over their heads.

Maria has kissed her fair share of people, but none of them like Isobel. She’s a frustrating mix of desperation and terror, liable to shake apart at any given moment. Maria doesn’t let herself cling the way she wants, doesn’t grip Isobel’s hips to keep her close, doesn’t whisper promises into corners of Isobel’s body. She’s not going to be the casualty in this.

Isobel kisses her like a nicotine burn in her veins, and Maria knows the warning signs of addiction well enough by now. Who is the addict here, though, she can’t yet tell.

Kissing her is an ache, pressing into a bruise before it’s fully healed, blooming purple and blue behind her eyes, fading to the barely-there-yellow of Isobel’s hair.

 

_If anyone’s gonna destroy me, it might as well be you. // I wanted to be the kind of person who won battles._

The storm roars overhead, a violent destruction devouring them in its wake.

Michael is spread beneath him, golden and perfect in his ruin, a scorching sacrifice under Alex’s hands. His neck is long, exposed, the sharp jut of his jawbone an invitation. Alex bites the juncture, sinking teeth into giving skin, swallowing the gasp that falls from Michael’s lips.

The storm outside matches the warring emotions in Alex’s own chest. He wants, so much, he feels as if he will implode, scattering small, stinging shards of his irregular, corrupt heart into everything.

He didn’t come here seeking this, though he never really does, in the end. He falls into Michael like this because it’s the only way he trusts himself to have him without hurting him. He can love like this, safely, with his hands and his mouth, with the gentle touch he patiently taught himself to have despite the world around him tearing at his core.

Michael begs, and Alex can give him this, touches tender enough to soothe and kisses that speak the only truth Alex has ever known. He’s loved him since they were seventeen. No one else, in this godforsaken world, was worth touching after he’d had Michael like this.

The Airstream is made of flimsy material, and it shakes and groans around them as Michael falls apart under him. The wind finds them, bringing a snapping chill that leaves them both clinging harder to one another.

“You can stay,” Michael whispers under the explosion of thunder outside, Alex’s face hidden in his neck. “I would keep you.”

And Alex wants so much, that when the lightning breaks the sky open, it’s that release he’s always feared, with tears on his cheeks, his or Michael’s or both, none of it matters.

“Okay.” Alex offers, the most he can manage when Michael looks at him like the only thing that tethers him to this world. “Okay.” He repeats it, again and again, pressing it into Michael’s lips, his chin, the tendons of his neck and the plains of his chest, the thin skin of his wrists and the newly unbroken fingers of his left hand. He means _I love you_ and _I’m sorry_ and _I’ll keep you too_ and all the other words he’s never been brave enough to voice.

 

The storm passes, like it always does, and the world settles back into its regular cadence. The sky blooms purple and pink, illuminating everything in pastel hues before the night brings its comforting darkness.

For now, you can rest easy, having faced the storm, finding solace in the shelters offered to you. Tomorrow, the world awakes, refreshed, renewed, ready to start again.


End file.
